Experts answer students’ questions

Mar. 21, 2007
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com

FREDERICK — More than 30 students participated Tuesday in Biotech for Beginners, a day-long workshop for people interested in an introduction to the industry.
     The class, held at Frederick Community College, included a lecture on biotech business models, an introduction to the bioprocessing technology program at the college, a hands-on laboratory exercise and a panel discussion.
     Five biotechnology panelists representing the research and development, military, education and manufacturing segments of the industry, discussed their area of expertise and answered questions.

Learning biotech
     Charlene Bonham, supervisor of career and technical education at Frederick County Public Schools, discussed a new four-part biomedical science program under development for high school students.
     The classes will help students better understand the fundamentals of science and prepare them for the bioprocessing technology program at the college.
     The college program, scheduled to start this fall, offers students two paths.
     College freshman may earn an Associates of Applied Science degree. Students learn about lab techniques, such as how to harvest enzymes and antibodies, while they take academic classes, such as English and history.
     The other option, a certificate program, is for students who already have a degree. The certificate track focuses on learning skills needed in a bioprocessing environment.

From idea to drug
     Col. George W. Korch Jr. is the commander of the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.
     Korch discussed the institute's role in developing new drugs to fight diseases that could be used in biological warfare.
     “We're living in the age of biology,” he said. “I represent the discipline and process that moves an idea to a point where it can be made into a product.”
     One of the things the institute does to accomplish that is trace a virus's epidemiology — the occurrence, distribution, prevention and control of disease in people.
     The institute has worked with viruses such as SARS and Ebola.
     “Everything goes from the mad scientist type ideas to very specific product requirements,” Korch said. “As you go down that pipeline, it gets more expensive.”
     It's not uncommon for it to cost between $800 million and $1.3 billion to take a drug from concept to market, he said.

Testing drugs
     Jason Yovandich is the program director of the Biological Resources Branch of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the National Cancer Institute at Fort Detrick.
     Yovandich talked about how the branch transforms drugs tested on animals or cells into products that can be used for small human trials.
     “We yield purified material to try in humans for the first time,” Yovandich said. “If we're successful in clinical trials, we give it back to investigators for large scale production.”
     Often, about 100 people participate in such initial trials, he said. But sometimes the drug goes through several phases of testing or may even be released to the public before a problem is found.

From drug to product
     Michael P. Kinley, director of site operations for drug maker MedImmune, said the company prefers to invest in commercializing new drugs, rather than pay for research and development from scratch.
     “We don't do primitive research,” he said. “We find intellectual property and take them from clinical trials to market.”
     Kinley described two types of development common to the biotech manufacturing industry: upstream — growing, feeding and harvesting drug-producing cells — and downstream — purifying and readying the drug for packaging.
     While the 331,000-square-foot plant under construction off Ballenger Creek Pike will manufacture drugs, they will be packaged and labeled at another MedImmune plant.

Biotech manufacturing
     Kim Warren is the vice president of process development for chemical and biotechnology manufacturer Lonza, in Walkersville.
     Warren discussed some of the ways the company mass produces drugs from living tissue, often from live donors, surgical discards or cadavers.
     The company uses incubators to grow cells, which can then be used to manufacture other cells that can treat diseases.
     The training programs at the college will help satisfy the growing need for skilled biotechnology workers, Warren said.
     “We're looking forward to the pipeline of trained workers, because these applications are not suited to automation,” she said. “We need manual labor for these rigorous tasks.”